Seventeenth Sunday In Ordinary Time
JOHN 6:1-15 (2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-11, 15-16, 17-18; Ephesians 4:1-6)
This Sunday’s gospel reading is the first of five taken from John 6, the Bread of Life Discourse.
In the first three sentences John places key words to help readers understand the catechesis of this discourse. The key words: sea, multitude, signs, mountain, Passover. This collection of nouns reminds readers that the themes of Moses and the Exodus run throughout this whole chapter. When Jesus crosses the sea with a multitude following Him, John proclaims Jesus as the new and ultimate Moses. This is a theme John already touched upon in 1:17, 45. That Moses worked great signs is part of the Exodus tradition. In John’s gospel the multitude followed Jesus because they saw the signs which He did. Moses’ connection with the mountain, (Mt. Sinai), is a major part of the Exodus tradition. John writes, “Jesus went up on the mountain….” The rules for the observance of Passover in Exodus 12 are given by the Lord through Moses. John writes,
“Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.”
Jesus will work three signs in John 6. “Sign” is John’s word to indicate a miracle of Jesus. He calls them signs because they are signs to one or more ways of understanding Jesus. Today’s sign is the multiplication of loaves and a few fish to feed five thousand in the wilderness. Obvi-ously John wants his readers to think of Moses feeding the Israelites with manna in the Sinai wilderness. John introduces the logistics of the sign/miracle. Jesus is either testing or teasing his disciple Philip. He was one of the early disciples Jesus called to follow Him. He says to Philip, “Where can we buy bread that these people may eat?” John assures us that Jesus needed no input from Philip, “This he said to test (tease) him for he knew what he would do.” Philip answered, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” A denarius was a Roman coin used in Roman occupied Palestine. One denarius was considered a day’s wages. Two hundred denarii might be the annual income for a day laborer.
Andrew, another early disciple of Jesus, steps forward. He was Simon Peter’s brother. He said to Jesus, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what good are they among so many?” One may generally assume Old Testament influence in the formation of any narrative in the gospels. At this point we can detect the influence of today’s first reading, 2 Kings 4:42-44. The ninth century B.C. prophet Elisha had disciples, just as Jesus did. One of them brings to the prophet twenty barley loaves. Elisha orders a slave or disciple to set the barley loaves before a hundred people, but the man objected, “How can I set this in front of a hundred people?” Elisha responds, “Just do it!” The Lord had promised that there would be plenty to eat plus leftovers. “And when they had eaten, there was some left over, as the Lord had said.” Many elements of John’s story of Jesus’ miracle are in this Old Testament story, even the leftovers.
There is no further discussion between Jesus and His disciples about what and how to feed the multitude. Jesus commands His disciples, “Make the people recline!” “To recline” was generally the term used to sit down to eat at table or otherwise. This involved a half-sitting, half lying-down posture – not recommended today. John notes, “There was much grass in the place.” This may indeed be a historical note but it also echoes Psalm 23:1-2, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures…. You prepare a table before me.” John will pick up this theme in his tenth chapter, the Parable of the Good Shepherd. John adds, “The men (andres) sat down, about five thousand in number.”
The influence of the words used by Christians in the Eucharistic meals long before John wrote his gospel is obvious. Jesus took the loaves, and having given thanks (eucharistesas), distributed to those who were reclining. The fish are not important for recalling the Lord’s memorial meal, but John does not neglect them, “…and also as much of the fish as they wanted.” The fish will disappear in the collection of fragments. When they (the people) had their fill, Jesus orders His disciples to gather the leftovers, “and they filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves.” What is the importance of the fragments? Fragments (Greek: klasma, klasmata), used for the leftovers in the gospel narratives of feeding five thousand, became a technical term for the Eucharist. This we see in a late first century Christian guidebook called The Didache (The Teaching). In Didache IX:4, “As this broken bread (klasma) was scattered upon the moun-tain, but was brought together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together….”
The sign is complete. John must tell readers what this sign identifies about Jesus. “When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world.’” This is a reference to Deuteronomy 18:15-18. There the Lord promises a “prophet like Moses,” and says, “To him you shall listen!” Jesus is the new Moses. He is about to proclaim new revelation, the Bread of Life Discourse. “To him you shall listen!” There is another identity John reveals. He writes that Jesus knew they were about to proclaim Him king. King implied “the anointed one.” A Messianic King, a Messiah/Christ was awaited by the people of Israel. A popu-lar belief claimed that when the Messiah arrives, the manna will be renewed. By his story of the feeding of the five thousand with bread in the wilderness, John proclaims Jesus Messiah/King.
